Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2021 January 15

= January 15 =

What does "created live" mean in this context?
What does "created live" mean in this context? Rizosome (talk) 14:32, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The artwork itself was created at the same time as the auction to sell it was taking place. --Viennese Waltz 14:35, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * In this context, the artwork is the destruction of the painting rather than the original painting. As it literally occurred at the moment of the sale, it was "created live" in the sense of live television or a live recording, meaning in this case "simultaneous to..." -- Jayron 32 14:39, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * This is a little myopic. It is a claim made by Sotheby's. Wasn't the work also created when Banksy assembled the device that would provide the shredding? Bus stop (talk) 17:04, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's a little marketing, that's what it is. -- Jayron 32 19:29, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "Created dead" also seems applicable. --Lambiam 21:27, 15 January 2021 (UTC)
 * DOA: dead on auction. Clarityfiend (talk) 23:48, 15 January 2021 (UTC)

I'm looking for a better word
Yallourn is described as a company town. But it wasn't. It was owned by the state government entity which delivered electricity and other products to the residents of the state of Victoria, Australia for around 70 years. The town was not owned by a company, so it wasn't a company town. I see some parallels with townships on military bases, but a look at a few articles about places like that hasn't helped me. What is a better word for Yallourn? HiLo48 (talk) 23:16, 15 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I think the meaning of "company" is broad enough to consider that a company town, personally, and I can't think of a more appropriate term. The question might be whether it's too pejorative: at my age, it doesn't seem like a judgmental/negative term but to older folks it might. Temerarius (talk) 00:06, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree, "company town" is right. A government entity may actually be a company, but even if it isn't technically one, it acts enough like one for the usage to work. --142.112.149.107 (talk) 00:09, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * (ec) I too think company town seems perfectly appropriate in this case. I am not aware of the term being pejorative, but then I am a mere stripling of 50. DuncanHill (talk) 00:11, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I said nothing about the word being pejorative. My concern is that it's simply wrong. The town was not owned by a company. HiLo48 (talk) 00:16, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I never said you did say anything about it being pejorative. DuncanHill (talk) 00:18, 16 January 2021 (UTC)

By the way, in past decades CIA employees always called the CIA "the company". If you referred to it as "the agency", that was a sign you were an outsider... AnonMoos (talk) 05:11, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I can assure you that the government body that owned the town of Yallourn was never called a company, by insiders or outsiders. HiLo48 (talk) 05:34, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * But that still doesn't mean that "company town" is inappropriate. --142.112.149.107 (talk) 08:22, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * It's literally incorrect, because it wasn't owned by a company. It's a term that's never been used (outside Wikipedia) to describe the place. I think that makes it inappropriate. HiLo48 (talk) 09:25, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Why would a company town need to be owned by a private company? Not all red light districts have red streetlights. The point is in restricting the inhabitants choice of employer/industry/ability to pack up and leave. The company town page mentions towns that were never owned by private companies, like Pripyat. 93.136.206.110 (talk) 10:35, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Whatever alternative we might or might not come up with, changing the defining sentence of the article is going to need discussion at the article talk page, where there are no doubt editors more familiar with the place and in a better position to decide, so I suggest you take the discussion there.--Shantavira|feed me 10:35, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Because the town was demolished in the 1980s, Nobody lives there any more, and the article sees very little activity. I thought of putting a discussion there, but expected very little response. HiLo48 (talk) 22:10, 17 January 2021 (UTC)


 * section 2.4 suggests "Government town". Bazza (talk) 11:14, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * Sometimes (at least in the U.S.) "government town" can just mean a city with a lot of government employees, and not necessarily with a closed system like a company town. Austin, Texas used to be known as a government and university town before the late 1980s tech boom (or, as our article expresses it, "Emerging from a strong economic focus on government and education, since the 1990s Austin has become a center for technology and business")... AnonMoos (talk) 16:06, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * , I think you're falling into the etymological fallacy. The origin of a phrase doesn't reliably tell us what the current meaning is. The question is what people use the prhase to mean. Certainly most uses of the phrase refer to a commercial company, but not all. The third hit for "company town" in the iWeb corpus is "Svalbards major employer was the state coal mining industry; Longyearbyen was essentially a company town whose daily life centered on the mining business", which seems parallel to Yallourn. --ColinFine (talk) 13:05, 16 January 2021 (UTC)


 * I would remove "company town" from the lede. In the lede I would place information found in the sentence from the "Design" section reading "The majority of the land and buildings, with the exception of the churches and several minor properties, were owned by the S.E.C.V." That wording is specific to the town of Yallourn. Bus stop (talk) 16:49, 16 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The concept of "company town" goes beyond that of real-estate ownership; it also implies a controlling influence of one organization over the local economy by being the only large-scale job provider (a local monopsony on the job market), often accompanied by an undue control of local politics. --Lambiam 01:51, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The characterization is not justified. An indication of this is that we don't even find the term "company town" in the body of the article. Why should it be in the lede? Bus stop (talk) 02:59, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Multiple reliable sources describe Yallourn as a "company town":, , , , , , , . --Lambiam 10:42, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The lede should not be saying Yallourn was a "company town". The body of the article does not even use that language. "Company town" is relatively uninformative. I would consider for the lede wording such as "the State Electricity Commission was simultaneously landlord, employer and governor." Bus stop (talk) 16:58, 17 January 2021 (UTC)
 * "was simultaneously landlord, employer and governor". We have a word for that situation - company town. Is there a American English/other Englishes problem here? Rmhermen (talk) 00:12, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * The lede is not for pigeonholing the subject of an article. "Company town" is slightly pejorative; it certainly isn't flattering. At our Company town article I find: "many have been regarded as controlling and/or exploitative...an economically viable ploy to attract and retain workers...isolated workers...control of workers by their employers...workers often had no say in local affairs and therefore, felt dictated to...political climate caused resentment amongst workers." Contrary to this characterization, associated with the term "company town", people seem to remember Yallourn fondly: "Yallourn grew into a beautiful town with lovely avenue of deciduous trees, sporting facilities. It had a look about it...Whenever Yallourn people were together they talked Yallourn...All these people have gathered over the years to talk about their memories in Yallourn and there is a great bond between all ages". If there is no need for pigeonholing the town as a "company town" in the body of the article then why is there a need to pigeonhole the town as a "company town" in the lede? The lede is a more prominent part of an article. Bus stop (talk) 01:41, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia should go by WP:RS. If RS call a town a "company town", then it is irrelevant whether any particular editor feels this is unflattering. Several of the RS I linked to contain content, that could be used in the article, by itself justifying the use of the term for Yallourn. Not all of its history was sunshine and rainbows. --Lambiam 10:23, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * Guys, as Shantavira wrote upthread, you need to box this up and take it to the article's talk page. --Viennese Waltz 11:04, 18 January 2021 (UTC)
 * As I wrote up above - Because the town was demolished in the 1980s, Nobody lives there any more, and the article sees very little activity. I thought of putting a discussion there, but expected very little response. HiLo48 (talk) 01:11, 19 January 2021 (UTC)
 * I would place company town in the body of the Yallourn article but not in the lede. The internal link to company town in this article is easily justified by our mission to be educational, and as others have pointed out, the applicability of this term to this town is amply supported by reliable sources. The problem, as I see it, is that this arrangement is presently in reverse: we have company town in the lede but not the body of the article. I consider this to be the reverse order. Bus stop (talk) 15:28, 18 January 2021 (UTC)